American Family Association

There are educators in my family, so I know a few things about how challenging that profession can be. The hours are long, the pay is often mediocre and the working conditions are sometimes not great.

But at the same time, I’ve been taught by teachers and have encountered some at the public schools my daughter and son have attended who were born to the profession. They’re just naturals. They have a gift, and it’s hard to imagine them doing anything else.

Unfortunately, there are also people working in public schools who probably ought to be doing something else. Read more

Take a look at the picture of me accompanying this blog post. Do I look scary to you?

I didn’t think so.

But I’ve apparently managed to terrify Jerry Newcombe and some of his Religious Right friends. They say I’ve been stalking the land like a kind of civil liberties Godzilla, stomping on the rights of Christian pastors all over the nation. . Read more

I am the humble servant of a non-profit organization and have never really aspired to be a high-powered corporate public-relations man. But today I’m going to step into that role and offer some free advice to Lowe’s Home Improvement and any firm facing the threat of a boycott from fundamentalist zealots.

My advice is simple: Ignore them. When you ignore them, nothing happens. When you cave in to them, lots of things happen – all of them bad. Read more

Thanksgiving is tomorrow followed by Black Friday and Cyber Monday with a weekend of leftovers in between, so this looks like a good time for an update on the “War on Christmas.”

It’s over. We won.

To be more accurate, I should point out that it’s not possible to win a war that was never really waged. And there never was a war on Christmas. The “war” was a figment of the Religious Right’s imagination all along, or, more accurately, a cynical creation designed to help theocratic groups raise funds, win new support and get their names in the media. Read more

As I mentioned on Friday, I spent the weekend attending the “Values Voter Summit,” the annual Religious Right uber-conference sponsored by the Family Research Council and its allies. This was the sixth time I’ve been to this event, and I wasn’t the only one there from Americans United. (Barry Lynn and three other staffers were there as well.) Read more

The 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks is approaching, and for some reason, Religious Right groups have decided to manufacture a new “culture war” controversy over a commemorative event that will take place in New York City. Read more

They know the best way to surreptitiously influence elections: hold an event at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas; say it’s about prayer not politics; collect thousands of email addresses through the event’s registration process; and two weeks later, send out a mass email urging attendees to show up at the polls and recruit others to go along. Read more

Texas Gov. Rick Perry had big plans for his exclusionary Christian prayer rally this Saturday. He was so proud of the event that he invited all 49 other governors to attend.

The RSVPs to “The Response” have been trickling in, and it doesn’t look good. So far, the number of governors who plan to attend the event at Houston’s Reliant Stadium in person stands at exactly zero, notes the American Independent.Read more

I’m heading to Houston, folks! I’ll be accompanying Americans United Executive Director Barry W. Lynn as we join with the Texas ACLU and other progressive allies to put on a rally on the night before Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s fundamentalist Christian prayer fest. Read more

Last Friday, as you know, Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik killed eight people with a car bomb in Oslo. He followed this explosion with gunfire at a Labor Party youth camp on Norway’s Utoya Island, which left at least 68 dead. Read more